(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate and Polk County Elections Director John Chiodo are allowing the public to view the testing that’s done on voting machines. Pate says they want to be sure everyone knows how the process works. “Because there’s a lot of people who don’t know what happens — I mean literally — they’ll fill out paper ballot and then they stick it into the machine and they’re going, where did it go, what did they do?,” Pate says. “And with some of the misinformation and disinformation has been going out, we thought it’d be very well thought through at least to give you the facts.”

Chiodo says “This goes on for many weeks and months preparing for this, it’s just not like I was telling the gentleman earlier, it’s not like we wake up on Election Day and throw everything against a wall and hope it sticks. I mean, we test and test and test and test. So you have that comfort, waking up on election day that things are gonna go right. If you get the doors open, you’re in good shape.”

Polk County Elections Director John Chiodo

Pate says they’re testing different kinds of ballots, because each precinct might have a different ballot for the different offices that are up for election. “This machine is also designed to assist the voter because let’s say for example, they caught a double vote, they actually voted for two people for the same office, the machine will catch that, and we’ll push it back out and alert you there’s a problem. Well, this can be resolved, right while the voters there, we don’t want to spoil their ballot, we don’t want to, we want to make sure your vote gets counted,” Pate says.

Chiodo ran a number of different ballots through a machine as reporters watched.

Pate says the machines are all clean when voting begins on election day. “Meaning there’s no information in here, they have a designated stick that we put in those. They’re sealed so that again, they’re only used this time. And that’s how it works,” Pate says. “That is really a big part of this — because at the end of the night they’ll take the stick out and the ballots and they’re all sealed. And now we have two ways to audit you have stick and you have the physical ballots to go off of.”

Pate says his office will identify a precinct in all the 99 counties that has to be manually audited with a hand count of the ballots for the top office against what the machine’s tabulator says. He says they’ve been doing that for three election cycles and it’s checked out 100 percent in all 99 counties. Chiodo says the machines are not connected to the internet during voting. “The only time that it has any connection whatsoever is at the end of the night when we enable a modem to transfer the results from the point place to here (county election office). And it’s outgoing only. And that’s only live for when they close the machine out — and there safeguards on both ends as far as who can get in who can get out. And it’s only outgoing data,” Chiodo says.

Pate says those numbers are only unofficial results and the numbers reported by the machines are checked against the paper ballots.

(Corning, Iowa) – The Adams County Sheriff’s Office reports five arrests took place over the past couple of weeks. Most recently, on Monday (10/3/22), Deputies in Adams County conducted a traffic stop at Highway 34 and Vanilla Avenue, and upon further investigation, arrested 18-year-old Kiaraliz Rodriguez Rosario, of Creston, for Possession of a Controlled Substance (Marijuana), and Poss. of Drug Paraphernalia. Rosario was being held in the Adams County Jail on a $1,300 bond.

On Sept. 30th, Deputies in Adams County conducted a Welfare Check and subsequently arrested 38-year-old Mandy Simpson, of Corning, for Violation of a No Contact Order. She was being held on a $300 bond. During the same incident, 34-year-old Michael Simpson, of Coin, was arrested on the same charge, as well as for Possession of a weapon in a Correctional Facility. His bond was set at $10,300.

On the 24th of September, a traffic stop at Highway 34 and the Avenue of the Industries, west of Corning, resulted in the arrest of 50-year-old Robert Dennis Gard, of Corning, for OWI/2nd offense. His bond was set at $2,000. And, on the 23rd, 53-year-old Michael Newsome, of Woodbine, was arrested in Adams County for OWI/1st offense. His bond was set at $1,000.

(Radio Iowa) – Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and his Democratic opponent, Mike Franken, will meet in their only televised debate tonight (Thursday). The two have been debating from afar in comments this summer and fall. Grassley, who is seeking his eighth term in the U.S. Senate, has been telling audiences his opponent would be an ally of President Biden.

“What you’re seeing is a candidate that’s going to be a rubber stamp if he’s in the United Senate for everything this administration wants because it seems like he’s backed it to this point.” Franken, a retired Navy Admiral, often cites Grassley’s longevity in office. “We’ve got real problems, but fixable problems and it’s not too late,” Franken said. “It’s never too late. Why? Because Iowans are resilient. We deserve better than a senator for life who voted against our needs.”

Tonight’s debate between Grassley and Franken starts at 7 p.m. on Iowa P-B-S.  There’s a debate tonight (Thursday) between the candidates in Iowa’s third congressional district on K-C-C-I Channel 8, the C-B-S affiliate in Des Moines. Congresswoman Cindy Axne, a Democrat from West Des Moines, and Zach Nunn, a Republican from Bondurant, are scheduled to debate again Sunday at 6 p.m. on K-M-A Radio.

(St. Charles, Iowa) – A single-vehicle accident Wednesday evening in central Iowa’s Warren County has claimed the life of a man from Texas. According to the Iowa State Patrol, a 2016 Ford F-150 pickup driven by 57-year-old Russell George Menth, of Leonard, TX, was traveling north on I-35 at around 5:30-p.m., when the vehicle left the road near mile marker 53.5

The pickup entered the west ditch and struck several trees and an embankment. Russell died at the scene. He was not wearing seat belt. The crash remains under investigation.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – (Atlantic, Iowa) – At the tail end of Wednesday evening’s City Council meeting in Atlantic, Mayor Grace Garrett announced the City will be looking to fill the position of Parks and Rec Department Director.

She was referring to Bryant Rasmussen. Rasmussen – who was hired in November 2018 as Parks & Rec Foreman, was promoted to Interim Director in March, 2019, following the resignation of Seth Staashelm, who left to take a job in Marion. The Council made him Parks and Rec Director Full-time, in August, 2019.

In other business, the Atlantic City Council passed the Third and Final Readings of Amended Ordinances pertaining to Mowing of Properties, Removal of Solid Waste, and Removal of Snow & Ice Accumulations. Councilman H.Lee Sisco voted “Nay” of each of the three amendments. Sisco explained his No vote, with regard to the Mowing of Properties…

Earlier, he shared pictures of a narrow sidewalk path where there was grass overgrowth. The measure passed by a vote of 6-to 1. Sisco also voted no on the Solid Waste Ordinance, because “There is not enough teeth” in it, “to get repeat offenders to collectively do what they need to be doing.” The measure passed 6-1 in favor. Lee Sisco, along with Councilmen Jim Behrens and Pat McCurdy, voted against the amended Snow/Ice removal ordinance. Pat McCurdy…

Despite their contentions, the ordinance was approved on a 4-to 3 vote. The Atlantic City Council approved an Order to close selected streets for this Saturday evening’s Fireman’s Parade (see previous story), and orders referring the vacating of an alley and ROW (right-of way), to the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission for official recommendation to the Council, before voting to make the orders official.

The Red Oak Police Department reports an arrest Wednesday afternoon. At 2:57 p.m. 60-year-old Tracy Lin Craven, Sr. of Red Oak was arrested in the 400 block of East Nuckols Street in Red Oak on a charge of Harassment 2nd Degree. Craven Sr. was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Nearly two-thousand meatpacking plant and farm workers in Columbus Junction, West Liberty and Washington will get 600-dollar pandemic relief checks from Catholic Charities U-S-A. The organization is giving one-point-two million dollars in federal relief dollars to Escucha Mi Voz to aid those workers in rural eastern Iowa. Father Guillermo Trevino says he witnessed a miracle Tuesday on the feast day of Saint Francis when the funding was announced.

“In a sense the meat plant workers were the heart and soul of the nation because they kept the nation going like so many. And I think people ought to appreciate them more, as well as the farmworkers because again we all have to eat. So a much deserved reward for them,” he says. The U-S. Department Agriculture’s Farm and Food Workers Relief Grants aim to help workers who incurred expenses during the pandemic. They hope to begin distributing the money to the Iowa workers in the new year.

(reporting by Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans are steadily promising to devote their farmland, roadsides and even urban properties to habitat for monarch butterflies. A 20-year program which Iowa State University launched five years ago is reporting significant progress, with 430-thousand acres of land already set aside. Nicole Shimp is a program specialist with I-S-U’s Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium which is releasing its Monarch Conservation Effort Report.

“We are just a little bit over 50% of our way to our low-end goal of establishing habitat here in Iowa by 2038,” Shimp says. “So that is really exciting news and proves that Iowa is really helping out the monarchs.” Iowa and other Midwestern states provide a summer breeding ground for the butterflies and almost 40-percent of the overwintering monarchs in Mexico came through Iowa. Shimp says efforts in Iowa to preserve habitat may already be paying dividends.

“This last winter we counted the monarch population and it actually held steady,” Shimp says, “compared to last year where it had dropped off.” Studies over the past two decades show the global monarch population has dropped 80-percent. The goal of the I-S-U program is to establish 790-thousand habitat acres statewide in the next 25 years, which Shimp says is very attainable.

“There’s a lot of great programs out there to help people that are thinking about putting in habitat,” Shimp says, “and so I have high hopes.” One of the program’s biggest gains is in acres of farmland. She’s hoping more and more Iowans will make the commitment to set up monarch habitat and register with the program.

“We have this app that can help people let us know about it and it really helps us,” Shimp says. “It’s as easy as just putting some pins on a Google map and then just filling out a few other details and then that’s all we ask of you.” That free app is called HabiTally. The Monarch Conservation Effort Report is online and shows habitat establishment in all 99 Iowa counties.

(Radio Iowa) – The lawyer for a man who was recently awarded 12 million dollars after he spent six years in prison for a sex crime he did not commit, says his client has post-traumatic stress disorder that will follow him the rest of his life. Donald Clark was convicted in 2010 on charges he sexually molested a student at Helen Lemme Elementary School in Iowa City where Clark was a counselor.

A judge later ruled his defense attorney was ineffective and that the child in the case had admitted to lying under oath. Clark was released from prison in 2016. Attorney Mel Orchard told K-C-R-G T-V that Clark stood strong in the face of the false accusation. “I don’t have the strength he had, to endure what he had to endure in prison. Unbelievable,” Orchard says.

Orchard says Clark maintained his innocence throughout, even when there was the temptation to take a deal that he was offered before his trial.  “That if he would just admit it happened, he’d get a lesser crime, No way. Because I didn’t do it, and I’m not going to admit to something that’s a lie, even if it costs me a prison sentence,” Orchard says.

Orchard said issues around Clark’s identity as a gay man were brought up in the malpractice lawsuit against Clark’s first lawyer and the state of Iowa. He says Clark was looked at differently because he was gay, and that should have been brought out in the original trial.

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(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass County Engineer Trent Wolken, today (Wednesday), said the bridge on West 6th Street in Atlantic over the Nishnabotna River, will be closing on Friday, October 7, 2022, for substructure repairs. Traffic will need to use Front St., Highway 83, and Sunnyside Lane, to get around the closure.

The project should be completed in 8-10 weeks, and is a joint effort between Cass County and the City of Atlantic.